Just Peachy

[Scooter68]

You can start out with a peach wine. How many pounds of peaches do you have? I would recommend at LEAST 6 pounds per gallon. Also remember that peaches will throw a lot of lees. That means you need to start fermentation with at least 1/4 gallon of additional volume for every gallon of finished wine. That would mean that a gallon of really peach good wine should be about 7 pounds of peaches. Prep the peaches by de-stoning them cut them up fairly thin and then freeze for at least a couple of days. Let them thaw and them mash them well before putting into a mesh bag. I normally make a simple syrup solution (2 cups sugar to 1 cup hot water) use that to raise the SG. You could drop that to a 1:1 ratio on the simple syrup and that way you can be adding water while you raise the SG. DON'T forget your Pectic enzyme as soon as you thaw and mash the peaches - in fact go heavy on it for peaches.

Whole fruit wines aren't hard. They are the only ones I make really.

By the way a peach wine with an ABV of 13% makes a very nice wine.

 

[iridium]

I have six pounds de-stones in the freezer. I have pectin enzyme as well. I will take your advice and just go for it. I have pectin enzyme and I think I will use EC 1118 yeast for the yeast. Sounds like I need yeast nutrient as well. I have campden tablets so after peaches are thawed will add enzyme and tablets and sugar. Sounds like I should wait a day to let it settle to get SG reading. I will start with a gallon batch. It may be weaker but will shoot for 1.5 gallons in primary to account for lees at racking.

 

[Scooter68]

Peaches tend to get a bit 'thick' so I'd recommend adding the pectic enzyme to the thawing peaches ASAP. Maybe let them sit overnight as they warm up to room temp with the enzyme. ( Perhaps mix the pectic enzyme in 1/4 cup water and pour over the thawing peaches to get a quick start.) Then add 1 campden tab and everything else the next day except the yeast. Then on the 3rd day pitch the yeast.

Oh and don't be surprised if you find it very tough to get an SG reading. Peaches have a tendency to make a very thick must initially. (See other thread on "NEED HELP! Very strange issue...")

 

[iridium]

I started the peach wine. I used 6 pounds of peaches and thawed them with pectin enzyme. Then I added two campden tablets after they were thawed. I squeezed the fruit. I got pretty good clear juice just not a lot. I had some leftover peach juice from commercial canned peaches so I made that into a syrup to get volume and SG up to 1.104. Added 3.5 tsp of acid blend to get acid to jus under 3.6. Added .25 tsp each fermaid-k and nutrient when I hydrated the yeast. Pitched the yeast four hours later. So far appear to have fermentation started once yeast got up to 70 F. I had the fermenter in a cold spot and moved it and covered with towels.

Very excited about this so thank you for all the information and advice.

 

[iridium]

Just racked my peach wine to carboy. Ended up getting a lot of lees in the wine as the picture indicates. I would think that I rack off the lees as soon as everything has settled the wait a bit to add clearing agents. Is that a good plan or should I add clearing agents now before I rack to get even more settlement at the beginning. Ending SG was .998 so pretty close to dry. I had trouble racking which resulted in a lot of agitation and probably some degassing as well.

 

[Scooter68]

Get it off the GROSS lees (Common with peach wine from fruit) and you can add clearing agents during the racking. When lees were "excessive" I've resorted to a stainless steel strainer to capture the gross stuff while racking from the primary container into the carboy. Toward the bottom of the bucket I run the must through the strainer. When the strainer is full of the heavy lees I swirl the lees around in the strainer and then toss out the captured lees into an empty bucket - then repeat. Key is to work quickly to avoid too much exposure in the process. I'm able to decrease the loss of volume quite a bit that way. Not necessarily the cleanest process but since the must is still fermenting there is still some CO2 coming off to protect the must in the carboy until I get it filled up. With a 3 gallon batch of peach wine I know to start with at least 3 1/2 gallons due to the lees.

Since your fermentation is completed you may want to avoid using the strainer and instead split your batch into smaller carboys to avoid having a lot of head space. Perhaps setting aside the gross lees until the racking process is completed and then try a quick run through the strainer and put that into a smaller carboy (1/2 gallon?) That way you should be able to recover enough for topping off after the next racking.

All of this reminds me it's about time to do another racking of the batch that started this thread as well as two smaller batches of peach wine I started since then (1 gallon Peach/Vanilla & 1 gallon to blend with the Peach/Vanilla)

 

[iridium]

How did the peach vanilla turn out? I also really enjoy peaches over vanilla ice cream on a warm summer day.

Late last night I saw that the peach wine was not done fermenting because it looked like the airlock had been popped off. I racked into clean carboy and did the straining like you recommended. Did well. Tonight I was going to rack again and add chitosan and k-meta. I was planning on ripping off with a Riesling which is a sweet wine. Since I am bulk aging for a couple of months should I be worried about restarting fermentation such that I add the sorbate at this time as well?

The taste was very alcoholic and very little peach taste. Hoping that improves with time because when I tasted at a higher SG the peach came through very nicely.

Thank you for all of your help and advice.

 

[Scooter68]

Not sure what might have caused an airlock to pop off - That's sounds more like it wasn't fully on?? maybe?? Don't forget of course that there is still a certain amount of CO2 to be out-gassed over time so the airlock needs to be there to permit that.
As to a restart of fermentation - Unless you add a ferment-able sugar source - once the SG is below 1.000 there isn't much more to ferment. BUT yes sorbate will normally help stop that. I don't thing that you need that right now. Just stick with the K-Meta additions protocol as you age the wine. THEN about a week before back-sweetening (Which should help bring back some of the peach flavor) add the last dose of K-meta and the sorbate. Wait about a week, back-sweeten, then wait one more week before bottling. Again do those last steps once you are at the end of the aging cycle. ( I am trying to stick to aging my wines between 10-12 months before bottling.)

The Peach Vanilla is due for a racking soon A(Next week or so) and I'll give it a taste then.

 

[iridium]

Thank you. I found a thread on blueberry wine where you gave really good detailed info on the process to use before bottling. I think at this point I am still not clear but will add k-meta and clarifier and wait several months. Next up will likely be blackberry and there is a lot of good info on how to make that wine!